Take all the time you need and give me a good product.
Sincerely, Still in the Molten Core... Blizzard has never shipped anything before it was ready. We (gamers) always get very high quality products that we dedicated a lot of time over many years to! You can walk into any game store and STILL get Diablo off the shelf. You can't say that about much software.
When it comes to shuffling music, random() isn't always good enough.
A few years ago I wrote the playlist generator for Digital Gunfire, who plays by the record label's rules.
One of these rules is "can't play a song by the same artist within N minutes of itself". So, I had to write a "guarantee'd less-likely" ordering algorithm, probably similar to the iTunes function.
It's an interesting problem!
...when somebody would start to do other things with the GPU other than graphics!
When I first started poking around with Open GL, and learning what it is to make a 3d application, i started wondering when other applications would start taking advantage of the matrix crunching power a gpu.
The guy who copied my code was an old school cheater; he needed five lines of code to crack a problem that he was beating himself over the head with, and once he had the answer, it was nothing at all to write it in his own way.
I think this is a perfect example of the differences between Real Life and school.
In school it's called "cheating". In real life it's called "collaboration".
1) need cable for whatever reason 2) where can i get one around here? best buy? circuit city? compusa? 3) drive to one of the above 4) "where are the cables?" 5) get pointed to a wall of Monster stuff 6) "do you carry any thing else?" 7) sigh 8) GOTO 3 9) hurt myself trying to open the packaging
Who has the right to pull you over on the freeway?
I'm pretty sure in California the patrol car has to be "clearly marked". but just yesterday in Portland, OR i saw a completely black camero turn itself into a christmas tree and pull a guy over. who's to say that some psycho with a black camero didn't go on ebay and buy himself a few flashing LEDs and stick them in his windows?
So, when i'm pulled over by the black camero, can i call 911 and see if this guy's legit?
I've had Verizon's service for about a year and am pretty happy with it. They could do A LOT better though.
I orginally had a Novatel V620 PCMCIA card connection to my powerbook, but when I got my Mac Book Pro, it became instantly useless. As of a few months ago, there are no ExpressCard/32 adaptors available for any of the service providers.
The solution I went with was to get a bluetooth cell phone (and voice service... blah) and use the phone as a modem. Works pretty well, though I wish there was a card for it. Of course the verizon morons at the store don't really know what they are selling, so they also had me buy the stupid USB wire to the phone (that doesn't even charge the battery!) that doesn't because, according to them, you can't share the data connection over bluetooth (but you can!).
So ya, overall i'm happy with it because it works. I'm surprised that i usually have a latency of under 500ms. I can play World of Warcraft from pretty much anywhere =)
I'm also a washingtonian, but hop over the river into portland to buy my stuff tax free. They don't charge me when i cross the bridge back into washington.
It's a good idea to pass on BOP items (if you don't need them) so that the item can be disenchanted into something more valuable than the item itself and sold in the auction house. Basically, the DEer of the group grabs the item, the group/roll's and whoever gets the highest receives the materials to sell in the AH.
of course it's a moot point if somebody actually needs the item. but it all works out in the end.
metropolis recently made a deal with iTunes so more is starting to show up. but that stuff is really easy to get anyways. i like supporting my local record store and the smaller artists / labels. i'd also be more apt to buy music from iTunes if i knew i'd be screwing over the RIAA in some way.:)
also, while i appreciate what iTunes is, i amore more comfortable having a physical medium to 'back up' my electronic copies.
reading this comment nearly made me vomit. then it nearly made me cry.
hopefully business practices would be considered illegal. i personnaly don't buy from the iTunes music store (they just don't carry much industrial yet), but if they set up a business model like that and set a precident, then i would hate to see what visa / mastercard could do if they teamed up with other retailers to sell 'purchase profiles'.
i'm not an economist, so i have no idea what effect this would have on the economy at large, but i can't imagine it would be good. of course, this actually makes me feel a bit better.... i don't see the big boys wanting to f-up the economy.
The labels still have their place. It's the same place as real estate agents. They do work that the artist doesn't want to do as well as insulate them from the world at large from liabilty.
Yes, you can record, mix, master, press, market, and ship an album. But most artists don't want to deal with these facets of music production. A musician is not a producer. A musician is not a marketeer. There is a lot of technical know-how involved in getting a song out of the brain and onto a CD rack in a store (physical location or iTunes) that most artists just don't posses.
So, just like you can sell your own house, it's usually a better idea to delegate production to somebody else. The label's aren't going anywhere. The need for them is still very high. Unless of course you have the time and desire to learn the many different disciplines involved in music production.
Slashdot Mirror
Dear Blizzard,
...
Take all the time you need and give me a good product.
Sincerely,
Still in the Molten Core
Blizzard has never shipped anything before it was ready. We (gamers) always get very high quality products that we dedicated a lot of time over many years to! You can walk into any game store and STILL get Diablo off the shelf. You can't say that about much software.
So, they've replaced the word "My" with "Windows" to bring it into the new millennium or something? ...and i thought "my" was irritating.
When it comes to shuffling music, random() isn't always good enough. A few years ago I wrote the playlist generator for Digital Gunfire, who plays by the record label's rules. One of these rules is "can't play a song by the same artist within N minutes of itself". So, I had to write a "guarantee'd less-likely" ordering algorithm, probably similar to the iTunes function. It's an interesting problem!
...when somebody would start to do other things with the GPU other than graphics!
When I first started poking around with Open GL, and learning what it is to make a 3d application, i started wondering when other applications would start taking advantage of the matrix crunching power a gpu.
I think this is a perfect example of the differences between Real Life and school.
In school it's called "cheating".
In real life it's called "collaboration".
My problem usually goes like this:
1) need cable for whatever reason
2) where can i get one around here? best buy? circuit city? compusa?
3) drive to one of the above
4) "where are the cables?"
5) get pointed to a wall of Monster stuff
6) "do you carry any thing else?"
7) sigh
8) GOTO 3
9) hurt myself trying to open the packaging
IF they are savvy enough to go looking for that software.
A question I have yet to get an answer for is:
Who has the right to pull you over on the freeway?
I'm pretty sure in California the patrol car has to be "clearly marked". but just yesterday in Portland, OR i saw a completely black camero turn itself into a christmas tree and pull a guy over. who's to say that some psycho with a black camero didn't go on ebay and buy himself a few flashing LEDs and stick them in his windows?
So, when i'm pulled over by the black camero, can i call 911 and see if this guy's legit?
Rip off or not, I was doing stuff similar to this in Decent years and years ago with the DEVIL editor. It's not a new concept at all.
LG VX8100
in case anybody wants to take advantage of this knowledge =)
I've had Verizon's service for about a year and am pretty happy with it. They could do A LOT better though.
... blah) and use the phone as a modem. Works pretty well, though I wish there was a card for it. Of course the verizon morons at the store don't really know what they are selling, so they also had me buy the stupid USB wire to the phone (that doesn't even charge the battery!) that doesn't because, according to them, you can't share the data connection over bluetooth (but you can!).
I orginally had a Novatel V620 PCMCIA card connection to my powerbook, but when I got my Mac Book Pro, it became instantly useless. As of a few months ago, there are no ExpressCard/32 adaptors available for any of the service providers.
The solution I went with was to get a bluetooth cell phone (and voice service
So ya, overall i'm happy with it because it works. I'm surprised that i usually have a latency of under 500ms. I can play World of Warcraft from pretty much anywhere =)
Don't forget that Blizzard is owned by Vivendi/Universal, who knows a thing or two about producing movies.
hahahaha
lol
hahahah
hehehehe
hehe ahhahahahaa ahahaaa
*glee*
mod article [Funny +9]
GridBagLayout
*wretch*
I like to call it "flyover country"
sure, oregon has no sales tax.
true.
I'm also a washingtonian, but hop over the river into portland to buy my stuff tax free. They don't charge me when i cross the bridge back into washington.
The guild i belong to has a very solid loot protocol:
/roll on the loot
Need/Greed on BOE
Need/Pass on BOP
if everybody passes roll on de
there's almost always an Enchanter in the group, but when there isn't we just stick with the protocol, and
this keeps things very clear and usually honest!
It's a good idea to pass on BOP items (if you don't need them) so that the item can be disenchanted into something more valuable than the item itself and sold in the auction house. Basically, the DEer of the group grabs the item, the group /roll's and whoever gets the highest receives the materials to sell in the AH.
of course it's a moot point if somebody actually needs the item. but it all works out in the end.
not just subjugated, but also "squeezed" and "processed"!
metropolis recently made a deal with iTunes so more is starting to show up. but that stuff is really easy to get anyways. i like supporting my local record store and the smaller artists / labels. i'd also be more apt to buy music from iTunes if i knew i'd be screwing over the RIAA in some way. :)
also, while i appreciate what iTunes is, i amore more comfortable having a physical medium to 'back up' my electronic copies.
reading this comment nearly made me vomit.
.... i don't see the big boys wanting to f-up the economy.
then it nearly made me cry.
hopefully business practices would be considered illegal. i personnaly don't buy from the iTunes music store (they just don't carry much industrial yet), but if they set up a business model like that and set a precident, then i would hate to see what visa / mastercard could do if they teamed up with other retailers to sell 'purchase profiles'.
i'm not an economist, so i have no idea what effect this would have on the economy at large, but i can't imagine it would be good. of course, this actually makes me feel a bit better
The labels still have their place. It's the same place as real estate agents. They do work that the artist doesn't want to do as well as insulate them from the world at large from liabilty.
Yes, you can record, mix, master, press, market, and ship an album. But most artists don't want to deal with these facets of music production. A musician is not a producer. A musician is not a marketeer. There is a lot of technical know-how involved in getting a song out of the brain and onto a CD rack in a store (physical location or iTunes) that most artists just don't posses.
So, just like you can sell your own house, it's usually a better idea to delegate production to somebody else. The label's aren't going anywhere. The need for them is still very high. Unless of course you have the time and desire to learn the many different disciplines involved in music production.
I'm so glad that the FBI has erradicated murder and terrorism from our world that they now have the time to focus on other plagues.
=/
yah, win32codecs :(